Autumn 2020: Is Everything Getting Dimmer or Is It Just Me?

Maybe that's what she says?

I've looked at it a little bit: seems to be mostly examining, from extant evidence, incl. medical, and maybe police records/news coverage as well, also prob what Stafford and others wrote from experience, his bipolarity, and how it was treated, and how it may have affected his writing. Not a valentine.

I like Robert Lowell, but not sure there's any point in arguing about it.

Speaking of Lowell, I recently finished The Mountain Lion, Jean Stafford and found it very fine. It is an oddment, in that it manages to smoothly combine a highly realistic and 'naturalistic' tone, while including a main character whose morbid eccentricity seems to challenge the very idea of what should be considered 'natural'. Yet, it all works and delivers on a level rarely touched so gracefully.

I also read the first Inspector Maigret novel by Georges Simenon, Pietr the Latvian, which had already achieved at least 90% of the fully-realized and mature Maigret series.

I like Robert Lowell, but not sure there's any point in arguing about it.

― o. nate, Tuesday, October 6, 2020 8:12 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

There's plenty of a point in arguing about it, since his racist, privileged bullshit continues to get a front seat from publishers and critics in this country. His work, along with others, continues to be pushed as a paragon of excellence when poetry as a whole has become more experimental AND inclusive, challenging ideas of the materiality of language and representation. On top of that, HIS POETRY SUCKS. It simply isn't very good, for the most part.

Don't get me started on Lowell and the confessionals.

Like, the connections between Lowell and CIA fronts are documented. His advocacy for a personal, confessional poetry opposed to the more political and anti-imperial poetry of groups like the Beats and those in the SF Renaissance is clear. He was a hawk and advocated for anti-communist ventures at home and abroad.

That racist, conservative trash like Lowell is remembered fondly, but poets like Baraka continue to be raked over the coals for various inflammatory statements is just one example of a wild double standard being applied when it comes to the political orientation of poets and poetry.

Robert Lowell is the most overrated poet of the past 150 years, anyone who wrote a book-length tome on him and his work cannot be trusted afaic.

― healthy cocaine off perfect butts (the table is the table)

OTM. Lord, have I tried.

Every ten years a new edition or bio or something will emerge, but I get the sense Elizabeth Bishop, James Merrill have (at last!) properly eclipsed Lowell.

I mean Bishop is only slightly better, IMHO, and I find Merrill to be utter pablum, but the latter is more about pure aesthetics and not about the manner in which aesthetics have been weaponized by the US government to nefarious ends.

Hard disagree! I find Merrill a total delight, especially now that I'm older and enjoy the complexity with which his mastery of meter and rhyme and rhythm complicated the relationships he limned.

Welp I like some of Lowell's poetry, in various modes, and always try not to let personal assholery get in the way of the song of the singer, the message of the bringer. Pound's remix of "The Waste Land" is still a keeper, at least as an antique template.; some of his St. Elizabeth's poens as well.
Jamison's book also seems to be a critque of Lowell's psychiatric treatment over the decades, a case as historical tracking device, as in Sylvia Nassar's A Beautiful Mind, which is a v. multi-dimensional life-and-times, much moreso than the movie duh

Certain poets -- Gluck, Jorie Graham, Lowell too -- I can only read their early work before their manner hardened.

Yeah, that's Eliot for me.
The St. E poems can be pretty affecting, as w some of Lowell's own selectivity, past the assholery for a moment.

I love Pound's translations and the pre-Mauberley stuff. I've tried Cantos so many times; they're proto-Google docs in which he cut and pasted musings, stray verse, quotes, and two thousand years of cultural detritus.

I don't really think that finding succor and intelligence in meter and rhyme and rhythm has anything to do with age. My most recent book is 498 interconnected haiku, and I list Hopkins and Donne's Holy Sonnets among my favorites.

I just find Merrill boring.

The Cantos are the only thing Pound wrote that are worth much imo

I love Pound's translations and the pre-Mauberley stuff. I've tried Cantos so many times; they're proto-Google docs in which he cut and pasted musings, stray verse, quotes, and two thousand years of cultural detritus. That's what I like, at least as a template! Also when Melville did it, also when he didn't do it too much.
Translations, as with editing, can bring out the best or better in both writers, for sure.
Yeah, that happens a lot in music too: the further back you go, the better the Residents get. Although with them in particular, you don't have to go back all that far, maybe the 80s

I don't really think that finding succor and intelligence in meter and rhyme and rhythm has anything to do with age

I didn't make a general statement -- I referred to myself.

You're coming off awfully aggressive today for some reason.

Everybody draws the line somewhere---I had my fill of Stanley Crouch's personality and literary persona long ago, can't read any of the tributes either. Bye schmuck.

Sorry Alfred! Not my intention, maybe a little keyed up by my absolute loathing for Lowell.

On the plus side, I get to record my lectures for ZZ Packer and Cather stories this afternoon, which should be a delight.

Right on! Love those two.

Really tho, I think that part of it is that there are certain poets, Lowell among them, who inspire an outsized level of dislike from me... partly because such poets have been allowed an outsized amount of space in literary conversation for the past six decades in the US. There arequite literally hundreds of other poets whose work and loves are more interesting. It just really grinds my gears in a way that many other things do not.

So, my apologies for coming off like a dick!

Whose work and lives, apologies

the manner in which aesthetics have been weaponized by the US government to nefarious ends

I honestly love the idea of the CIA having an operation to suborn prominent poets. Imagining Lowell getting involved in such a scheme doesn't really make him less interesting to me.

Perfect tweet

Want to know what's at stake this election? If we lose the Senate, socialist Bernie Sanders will become Budget Committee Chairman. If we hold the Senate, and I am re-elected, I will be Budget Committee Chairman.

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) October 9, 2020

Ha wrong thread sorry. Still a good tweet.

Some cultural groups were infiltrated pretty well, others were indeed fronts, at least as far as leaders and/or founders were concerned. Also, there were assets, whom you might sometimes drink and talk with; a lot of writers like to do that. And the more a writer gets around, the more likely he (think it was usually a he) might be approached. Nowadays of course, you can just check their social media, with an algorithm or two, if you like.

the manner in which aesthetics have been weaponized by the US government to nefarious ends

I honestly love the idea of the CIA having an operation to suborn prominent poets. Imagining Lowell getting involved in such a scheme doesn't really make him less interesting to me.

― o. nate, Saturday, October 10, 2020 9:48 AM (twenty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This post makes me want to scream.

(not that there aren't still people in the field, on the ground.)

"I honestly love the idea that a genocidal agency of warfare utilized artists to further its cultural operations" is honestly an evil opinion, full stop.

Might be yanking your chain

Tbh I hope so!

This might be beyond the purposes of the thread, but the Cold War in part paid for the post-WWII cultural moment; it's complicated and dialectical. I wrote about it a few years ago after reading Frances Stonor Saunders’ remarkable The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letter.

Thanks, Alfred! That's been on my list, and your write-up is enticing. Have you read "Du Bois' Telegram" by Juliana Spahr? Some very dense chapters there about the US government's thwarting of radical Black artistic projects worldwide. Some juicy bits about Richard Wright in particular.

In any case, I'm reading more Norma Cole at the moment, 'Moira.' Excited to get back to it after some days away, off in the woods.

yes, that's terrific!

Call me crazy, but I think radical geopolitics is about the least interesting angle from which to read Lowell. I finished reading True Grit. I liked the first half better. It kind of turns into a more conventional western adventure, and the comic elements recede, but still a good yarn. Now I'm reading Marrow and Bone by Walter Kempowski. Originally published in 1992 in Germany, its about a young man, Jonathan Fabrizius, living in West Germany in 1989 who gets the chance to visit East Prussia (ie. western Poland), from which his family was forcibly displaced during the war. There are some parallels to American novels like Everything is Illuminated, ie a young person revisits the site of a family's historical trauma, and both novels go the unexpected route of playing the setup for comedy. Also it links of course to Kempowski's more recent novel All For Nothing which tells the tragic tale of an East Prussian family during the war that could almost be Fabrizius's.

The idea that the CIA orchestrates genocides isn't radical, it's fact, but whatever.

Also, reading Lowell is never interesting, that's part of my whole point-- it's the scribblings of a crazy, racist, rich white dude, propped up to seem interesting by a power structure that is invested in maintaining the status quo. Talk about agonies and quiddities of the ruling class.

I liked seeing Aimless's report on THE MOUNTAIN LION.

I'm now reading another book with 'mountain' in the title: Mountain City, Gregory Martin. It is non-fic and simply tells stories describing a hamlet of 33 people in remote northern Nevada, where the author has family history and grew up. It's a quiet book, but has real depth, too.

Next up is Pale Horse, Pale Rider, Katherine A. Porter.

Gregory Martin? George Martin’s son?

I guess that Gregory Martin wrote a different book.

"Noon Wine" and the title story (which I reread when COVID started) are startling. Porter's been a huge influence on me since reading "Flowering Judas" in high school.

Christine falls. Enjoyable

about 2/3 of the way through Piranesi and it's gotten quite good, can't wait to finish (hopefully tonight after work)

Eula Bliss: On Immunity -- this is really good, as everyone else but me noticed in 2014.

Yeah it’s great. I have her next one in my library queue.

also belongs in Great Real Names (despite/extra-because *biss* no L)

I think I confuse here with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Blissett